Like Emmary I too couldn't even imagine life without my three fur babies.
As a long time, dedicated and devoted dog mama, I am just so saddened to hear of stories of pets that have been abandoned because of foreclosure or furry family members that have to be given up because families can no longer afford to keep them.
Any agency and/or service that is specifically geared to helping these poor creatures is a desperately needed service. In an effort to promote the services of this wonderful organization, I would like to pass along this info to anyone who knows of any fur babies that are in need of a new home.
People are not the only ones losing their homes, lets do what we can to help the ones that can't help themselves.
Over the last week, on my intraweb email, there have been quite a few realtors looking to help their clients rehome pets. I can't imagine having to do that. My girl, Belle, is everything to me. Personally, I'd live in my car before giving her up.
That's my girl!
However, I've seen heart-breaking stories on why people have to give up their furry friends. Home foreclosed on, new rental place won't allow pets and no one in their circle can adopt or foster. What can you do to help out without having to utter those words: "I guess you'll have to take them to the shelter."
These days there are a ton of options and, thanks to the net, all it takes is a quick Google search to find help. Local animal lovers normally have a network set up for helping rehome animals either locally or attaching the animal to a transport to another town. There are also breed specific rescues that can help point you in the right direction if they can't take the pet themselves. Some rescuers will take on the role of a foster for a while until a person is set up in a place and are able to take the pet back. There is an organization called "Foreclosure Pets" that was created to help.
Take a moment, do a google search in your local area and create a reference list that you can keep handy in case you happen to run across this situation. It won't take that long to do and, in the end, you're helping someone deal with a very emotional and trying time.
In the first four parts of this series, I provided some background info on what happens with most mortgages after the close of escrow as well as some of the different types of lenders available to consumers and the advantages and disadvantages of those types of lenders. 
I hope you have enjoyed this series, I know I have. In doing this series, I hope I have shed some light on the lending industry as well as provided some valuable information on how to choose the lender and MLO that is right for you and your particular mortgage needs. 
It's these types of buyers that need to be particularly selective about the lender and MLO that they choose to work with. There are going to be some lenders and MLO's that will not be the best choice for them but they may not realize that until it's too late. 
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While there are advantages and disadvantages of using any type of lender, working with lenders that focus on nothing but mortgage loans can be much more beneficial to you as both a homebuyer and/or homeowner. The two most common types of these organizations are mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers. 
The mortgage loan originators (MLO) that work for mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers 
The MLO's that work for depository lenders are 
You've decided to take the leap into the current real estate market and make the move to buy a home. For many of you, it will be your first home and for others it may be a larger home (after selling your current home). For some, it may even be a second home where you and your family plan to spend vacations. 
So who do you talk to? For some, you may talk to the mortgage professional who did your last mortgage and if you were happy with the service that you received from that person and you've stayed in touch with each other over the years, that is most certainly a good place to start. 
The three major GSE's in today's secondary market are Federal National Mortgage Association (aka Fannie Mae), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (aka Freddie Mac) and Government National Mortgage Association (aka Ginnie Mae). 
With the exception of Ginnie Mae, GSE's purchase mortgage loans from lenders so that the lenders have additional funds to lend more money to new borrowers. At this point, I want you to remember one thing about this stage of the process: "if a lender can't sell it, they won't fund it - period". Once again, with the exception of some portfolio lenders.
I know this all sounds confusing, especially since you just wanted to know how to choose a lender. While this can be confusing to most buyers looking for a lender, it is info that is good to know in order to understand what's important when choosing a lender. While it may seem like where your loan ends up at is really important and for some it may be, the more important thing to consider is how the lender and MLO you choose is going to benefit you in buying a home? 
In 
Last year, I pre-approved a buyer who didn't have the available funds for a down payment and he didn't really want to have to withdraw funds from his 401k in order to come up with the funds. When we talked about different options for acquiring his down payment, he mentioned that he had some motorcycles that he was probably going to sell. 
Shortly thereafter, I was pre-approving another buyer who had some large deposits on her bank statements and when I asked about them, she told me that she had done some garage sales lately and had also sold a bunch of personal possessions on Craigslist. Discovering that my buyer would be unable to provide documentation on the items sold or proof of ownership of the items she sold, I explained to her the problem that we had. 
While it's still possible to purchase a home if a borrower has recently sold some personal property, rest assured, there may be some hoops the borrower may have to jump through before getting to the closing table and this may require some additional documentation. This is where working with an experienced and diligent MLO will be absolutely vital because much of this can be addressed and resolved without delays to closing escrow. 
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Lastly, as I mentioned before, the only new documentation that FHA is really requiring is in the case of properties with less than 90 days of seasoning (i.e. property flips). The reason for the new documentation is because this is actually a new option for FHA; FHA has never allowed flipped properties before. 
None of these things 
In 
In my continuing effort to pull back the curtain on the underwriting process, in Part 2, I want to illustrate how verifying a buyer's employment can also cause hiccups along the way to the closing table. 
While it's still possible to purchase a home if a borrower has one, all or any combination of these scenarios, there will be some hoops the borrower will have to jump through before getting to the closing table and this will most certainly require some additional documentation. This is where working with an experienced and diligent MLO will be absolutely vital because much of this can be addressed and resolved without delays to closing escrow. 
Personally, so many of the scenarios that do come up in the underwriting process are not deal breakers but so often it seems that the agents in the transaction as well as our own borrowers sometimes get so worked up over the requests for additional documentation and simply don't seem to understand why these matters need to be addressed. I guess we (MLO's) are to blame for that one - we need to be better educators with our borrowers and their agents. 
One of the scenarios that Ralph asked about were the problems with Homeowner's Associations (HOA). This is most certainly a challenge and it doesn't seem to be getting all that much better either. 
While it's still possible to purchase a condo unit, there are numerous hoops a borrower and an HOA have to jump through before getting to the closing table and this will most certainly require some additional documentation. 
A couple of months ago, I attended 
Although the webcast was geared for Realtors and I found all the IDX discussion irrelevant to my business, 
So as the somewhat cautious blogger that I am, I stuck my toe into the blog syndication waters, so to speak, and signed up for a few blog syndication sites (
Because I like to track where my leads and referral sources come from, I asked where he saw my blog, he responded, "I saw it on Zimbio" - I just smiled. WOW! Just another example of how blogging is increasing my exposure to my local market and how I'm using the internet to generate more business. 
Now I know all you really savvy bloggers out there already knew about this stuff eons ago but for someone who's still a relative newbie (20 months) and didn't know about all of this, learning about blog syndication was a fantastic learning experience. I still have a lot to learn about blog syndication, simply signing up for a few syndication sites is just the tip of the iceberg. 